Todd and Andrew: ALPHA & OMEGA
by Tessaray
Summary: Reverend Andrew Carpenter has always been a little obsessed with Todd Manning, but Todd's marriage to Téa Delgado sends him over the edge.
**Todd and Andrew: ALPHA & OMEGA**

 **by Tessaray**

* * *

 _Reverend Carpenter_.

Whenever Andrew hears that now, he cringes. It's been a long time since he's deserved the title. If ever. He used to think he did, used to feel smug with piety and moral rectitude — self-righteousness, if he's honest — and that knowledge makes him downright nauseous.

He'd lost count of the number of times Todd Manning had called him a hypocrite. He hadn't actually started paying attention until it occurred to him that Todd might be right, that he saw something the rest of the good people of Llanview didn't. Maybe it took one dark soul to know another, and Todd was the darkest soul Andrew had ever encountered. He'd committed heinous crimes, yet seemed to escape earthly punishment like he had diplomatic plates from Heaven. Heaven was supposed to be _Andrew's_ department. And though his faith would sometimes waver, Andrew had come to believe that God put Todd Manning in his life to test him — his vows, his compassion — but ultimately, a special place in Hell awaited the man. He had to believe that. Or he couldn't believe anything.

But what about his own soul, his own darkness? He was failing the test God had set for him. He found it impossible to forgive Todd for raping Marty Saybrooke, terrorizing Nora Gannon, killing Suede Pruitt, and harming so many other people he cared about. It might help if Todd actually repented, but Andrew saw no evidence of it. Sure, he could put on a show and fool a few gullible, kind-hearted souls like Viki Carpenter, but only when it served him. Most of the time, he swaggered around with the impunity his wealth and power afforded him.

Beneath it all, Todd Manning was as evil as he'd ever been.

So how could it be that only days ago Andrew had been buried to the hilt inside Todd's wife, Téa Delgado? He loved her, he told himself...it was a rescue mission. But that was a lie. Everything about him was a lie. _Hypocrite_. Yes, Todd was right to call him that, right to accuse him of trashing the Commandments...and of trying to kill him. But Todd misunderstood his motive: Andrew didn't want to kill Todd to remove him as a rival for Téa's affections.

He wanted him dead for an entirely different reason.

###

Obsession should be one of the Deadly Sins.

Andrew had never in his life been obsessed with anything or anyone. He'd always been mild, reasonable, easygoing…dull. So it came as a shock when he realized that Todd Manning had begun to dominate his thoughts. He could trace it back to Todd's pardon by the governor. Andrew had experienced Marty's terror and despair firsthand — how was that God could allow such a savage to go free? And then reward him with extravagant wealth as the long-lost son of Victor Lord?

Still, Andrew had accepted that God's ways are mysterious. And he had even felt a moment of genuine compassion in the face of Todd's utter devastation when Blair lost their baby.

Yet when word came that Todd had died in Ireland…well, _joy_ would be too strong a word, but Andrew was…pleased. So God punished him for it by resurrecting Todd Manning within the year. Something essential shifted in Andrew then. God was definitely fucking with him...and he didn't like it one bit.

He started a scrapbook after that. Newspaper clippings mostly, a few photos, some candids he'd shot himself (not that he followed Manning around, but if he was in the vicinity, well) all of it neatly organized in chronological order. He'd considered organizing it by the type of crime Todd had been accused of — arson, assault, rape, kidnapping, murder — but ultimately it made more sense to start when Todd first descended on Llanview like a plague. He included other things, too: articles about setbacks, illnesses, accidents…Todd's private miseries that gave Andrew hope that there might be A Plan after all.

But then Téa — beautiful, whipsmart, sexy-as-hell Téa, the woman he'd been falling in love with — came to him with the news that she was going to marry Todd Manning for five-million dollars. He tried half-heartedly to talk her out of it, as her friend, as her minister, as someone concerned for both her physical welfare and that of her eternal soul. But inside he was chuckling; not even in a mischievous attempt to continue Andrew's moral education would God allow Téa to fall into the clutches of _that man_.

So the night he heard that _yes_ , God really was that much of a bastard, he showed up at Téa's office, gut-shot, clutching his thick scrapbook under his arm. He would be patient, kind, non-judgmental as he detailed the litany of horrors Manning had committed. Of course Téa would get an annulment once she saw what she had married, and she would be so grateful he'd rescued her she would offer herself without hesitation…

He'd been pounding on the office door for seven minutes before he realized it was after midnight and he'd had way too much to drink. He was holding the heavy scrapbook so tightly it was cutting off his circulation, and in a moment of clarity it occurred to him that from the outside, this whole enterprise might look a bit…psychotic. That's when he knew he was in trouble.

So he made it home and built a fire behind the rectory, all the while mumbling and shaking his head in disbelief. Ridiculous to see himself as some modern-day Job. How on earth had he gotten so out of control? Todd was just an ordinary sociopath, not Satan incarnate. Téa would make up her own mind, Andrew would burn the evidence of his madness. Then he would fast and pray and take a vacation…maybe somewhere in the Poconos. He held the scrapbook over the flames and thought of Téa's smile, her mouth so soft and sweet, her lips so full. As he imagined those lips on his cock, it hit him like a punch that _that fucking prick Todd Manning_ would get there first.

He let the fire burn out and stowed the scrapbook under his bed, just in case.

###

It didn't take Téa long to turn to Andrew for counsel. He listened, all compassion and impartial concern, and was delighted to learn that not only was Manning as much of a shit to live with as he'd guessed — no violence _yet_ , no abuse _yet_ — but the marriage had not been consummated...

So all Andrew had to do was keep showing up.

And he vividly remembers the turning point — when obsession turned into something else.

He and Téa had been flirting their way through a game of chess on the floor of the apartment she kept, during the first of what Andrew knew would be many sanity-breaks from Todd. She was good at both games, but better at the flirting...and her mouth, God, he wanted to kiss her, taste her. Her lips were so close and so _willing_ that he leaned in...and stopped when he became aware of a figure filling the open doorway, watching them. He couldn't tell what it was at first, just that it was glowering and magnificent, exuding a potent wrath that prickled Andrew's skin. Its hair shone like the halo of an avenging angel, and Andrew knew in that instant that in all his years in the pulpit preaching the Word of the Living God, he had never even begun to embody the kind of power that Todd Manning did just by standing there, filled with righteous fury. He affected Andrew like a visitation, so overwhelming him that he would have fallen to his knees in rapture if he hadn't already been kneeling over the man's wife.

Andrew felt his will drain away — alien thoughts and impulses took control of him, made him want to crawl, beg for forgiveness, offer his body up for punishment...

It was a moment that passed quickly, and Andrew was able to return to himself and leap to Téa's defense with all the strength he could muster. But it was real. It had happened. And Andrew was left to deal with the wreckage of his soul...and to hope that nobody had noticed his erection.

###

Denial was his first line of defense: he'd been aroused by Téa, shocked by Todd, wires got crossed…and that's what happened. Perfectly understandable. Forgivable.

Or…powerful guilt triggered a desire for punishment by an authority figure…Todd rhymes with God…sure, why the hell not. Understandable. Forgivable.

Or….maybe this sudden… _regard_ for Todd…was God's way of telling Andrew he needed to get over it, that Todd was a decent guy after all, _let he who is without sin cast the first stone_ , blah blah blah…

Yet. The memory remained of absolute, magnificent power. And Andrew was now irrevocably aware that he didn't have any. Where Todd glared, Andrew gazed. Where Todd strode, Andrew minced. Where Todd demanded, Andrew begged. Where Todd defied, Andrew conformed. And since Andrew knew he would never be dark, intense and larger-than-life, he suffered from an increasingly frantic desire to be the focus of the man who was.

The more he tried to suppress it, the stronger it became...until the night he finally had Téa in his bed. Driving into her for all he was worth, he saw not Téa, but _Todd_ , gasping beneath him, wrapping strong legs around his waist, Todd grabbing his ass, pulling him deeper, whispering, _Fuck me harder_ , and too soon, too soon, drawing forth from Andrew the most powerful orgasm he could remember, along with the half-sobbed words,

'I love you, I'm yours…'

He was mortified afterward, as Téa lay there unsatisfied, so he went down on her so she would think well of him. Two, maybe three orgasms later she was done; he was hard again, but terrified of his own mind. He caressed her until she fell asleep, then got up, showered and brought himself off as he imagined Todd's long hair wrapped around his cock.

###

When Téa called him a week later, sobbing, begging him to come to the penthouse and get her, he'd almost jumped for joy — if Todd had hurt her, maybe that would break the spell. He half hoped she would have a bloody lip when she opened the door, but Todd opened it instead. Insults quickly escalated to accusations and then they were on each other, wrestling, throwing and blocking punches, each trying to force the other to the floor. Andrew got the advantage and managed to pin Todd beneath him. He just wanted to subdue him, but when he saw Todd's eyes widen, he realized that he could feel it, where Andrew's pelvis pressed against Todd's thigh, the undeniable erection. Todd's lips slowly curved into a knowing smile, and Andrew, sick with rage and shame, wrapped his hands around Todd's throat and squeezed, needing and hating this thing beneath him, this thing inside him, needing to punish it for existing, to destroy it, obliterate it from the world. Even the sudden appearance of Téa didn't dampen his frenzy, and it was only when she smashed a vase over his head, only when he was flat on his back, dazed and could distantly hear Todd talking about Commandments and sweet murder did it sink in:

He knows, _he knows_. And Andrew knew he was finished.

###

Andrew wished he _had_ killed Todd. It would have been worth an eternity in Hell to wipe that evil smile off his face. And he would have done it if Téa hadn't intervened — he was as certain of that as anything. He was a murderer, just not a successful one… _yet_.

As he waited for the fallout, he couldn't even bring himself to pray for forgiveness. He expected the news of the _assault_ to be on the front page of Todd's rag along with an obnoxious headline outing him, and tortured himself by inventing Sun-worthy attention grabbers about the _Perverted Preacher_ and _Carpenter's Wood_. He waited for Téa to call, tearful with confusion, demanding explanations. He'd deny it all, of course:

 _Erection? Absurd. Libelous accusation. The word of a convicted rapist against that of a respected clergyman. And consider the source_ , he'd say _,_ _Todd needs to keep you in his web, he'll say anything._..

But nothing happened. The front page of The Sun sported the usual nonsense and mayhem, and when Téa showed up at his door a few nights later in nothing but her overcoat, he was so grateful that he was able to make love to her and barely think of Todd at all.

After she left, he remembered the feel of Todd's hands on him, his lean, muscled body, his wild hair sparking around his head like fire, the scent of sweat and struggle. And that obscene mouth smiling at him with…what? Vindication? Pleasure? After days of silence, Andrew had begun to suspect that it may have been... _pleasure_. Todd hadn't told Téa, after all. He hadn't told anyone. If he had, there would have been questions, rumors. Todd had no evidence, but he knew the truth — had felt it on his thigh — and surely Todd Manning would use that truth to his advantage...

Unless…unless he was as confused as Andrew — thin line between love and hate and all that — and they had hated each other for years...with a _passion_. Was it possible that Todd was protecting him, that maybe part of him was…interested? Andrew broke out in a sweat at the idea, reeling at his own thoughts, no longer knowing what he was capable of. And then he had a mini epiphany:

Maybe the shame and self-loathing he was experiencing were what Todd lived with everyday. Maybe they were what fueled him. Maybe Andrew was, in fact, beginning to have the first glimmers of compassion for the man...and maybe this was God's Plan after all.

That's why, when Todd shows up at the rectory the next night, Andrew lets him in.

###

Todd is filling the doorway of the rectory, glowering and ferocious, his hair wild, wind-blown...a two-legged lion come to eat the Christians. Andrew gets hard so fast it makes him dizzy.

'I could smell you on my wife this morning,' Todd says. His voice is quiet, but shot through with malice. He steps in, turns, locks the door behind him and advances slowly into the room.

'She showered, but I guess the stench of hypocrisy stands up to ordinary household cleansers.'

Andrew feels a thrilling knot of fear in his chest, but he stands his ground. 'You'd better not have hurt her.'

'Or?'

Andrew takes a step toward the phone on the table but Todd blocks his path, his overcoat rustling like the echo of wings.

'I notice you're not bothering to deny it,' he says.

Andrew tries to make his features stony, tries to address Todd with the tone of patient disdain they're both used to. They're in the rectory, after all…it's his domain. 'Your marriage is a lie, Todd," he says. "And Téa is a grown woman, capable of—,'

'But it's a marriage nonetheless, _Reverend_ Andrew. _What God hath joined together_ , yadda yadda.' Todd takes a step closer until Andrew can feel hot breath on his face. 'And isn't there something in your Holy Handbook that says, _Thou shalt not stick thy dick into another man's wife_?'

Todd drills into Andrew's eyes, seems to loom over him. Ordinarily Andrew would argue, point out Todd's failings as a husband, try to justify himself, but Todd's controlled rage laps at him like a fiery tongue and he feels small, weak, and suddenly as wrong as Todd believes him to be.

'Answer me,' Todd says.

Andrew clears his throat, tries to set his jaw in defiance, but it's no use. 'Yes,' he says, his voice catching. 'There is.'

It's too much…to have the man standing before him, exuding that potency, that _power_ , chastising him, shaming him. Andrew feels sure his erection is noticeable. 'Now, if you'll please leave…,' he starts to move toward the door, but Todd blocks him again, tilts his head back and studies him for a long time as Andrew stands there like a penitent, trying but failing to meet his eyes.

'You've been very bad, Andrew.' Todd's voice is low, steady, the malice gone. He's just stating a fact.

Andrew drops his chin and swallows hard.

'And you know it, don't you?'

Andrew feels the light, intense eyes move slowly over his face, down his body. Todd opens his mouth to speak, seems unsure, closes it again. Finally he says, 'I know what that's like…to be bad. You don't mean to be…you just want what you want.'

Andrew looks up sharply, but Todd's expression is open, full of… _understanding_...and _regret..._? No, Manning must have an angle…he's never _human_ unless it suits him.

But when he is human — not raging, not threatening, incredibly _not_ himself — he's hard to resist. His eyes are soft, he's almost gentle...and Andrew realizes with a slow, spreading warmth that he was right about Todd's shame, about his self-loathing...and he finally understands:

Todd hurts others because of how much _he_ hurts. _God_ , it seems so obvious now, so simple...is this the lesson Andrew was meant to learn? He lifts his eyes to Todd's...something seems to shift between them then and Andrew feels an electric charge rise in the room.

'I'm sorry,' Todd says, stepping even closer. His eyes flicker for a moment with something Andrew can't quite read. His skin smells warm, spicy, and Andrew subtly breathes him in. 'But you need to be punished. I don't _want_ to hurt you—,'

Andrew opens his mouth to speak, but Todd raises a hand, silencing him. 'Sshh...I don't have a choice. What you did can't go unanswered…'

He looks down at Andrew almost sorrowfully…a tender, silent reaching that draws Andrew toward him.

'Unless…'

'Unless what,' Andrew says breathlessly.

'Unless you can think of another way to make it up to me.' His voice is quiet and his eyes fix on Andrew's mouth.

Andrew's mind reels. It can't be possible…that Todd _wants_ … _him_. _That_.

But that's where the evidence seems to be pointing: there have been no vicious headlines, no well-deserved beatings…and he's being… _seductive_. What other conclusion is there?

But does _Andrew_ want this? Todd is watching him with a look too close to hunger, and though he's silent now, almost passive, Andrew can feel his ferocity, his _power_ , humming like a live wire just beneath the surface...

There's power in giving head, too, Andrew knows. And the opportunity to have Todd at his mercy, even once, to control him, to make him beg…the idea makes Andrew crazy. Fucking _hell_ , yes. He wants this.

He looks down to his own hand, curled in a loose fist at his side. When Todd follows his gaze, Andrew begins moving his hand slowly, tentatively, watching for any sign of resistance...until his palm comes to rest flat on Todd's groin. The two men lock eyes and when Andrew sees Todd's gaze soften, granting permission, he gently cups his hand around Todd's genitals.

'On your knees,' Todd whispers.

Andrew's cock leaps at that and he does as Todd says, his body vibrating with anticipation. The floor is hard under his knees, but he's beyond caring. He practically tears Todd's pants open, reaches for him far too eagerly for a man being punished. As Andrew's hand finds Todd's not-quite-hard cock, draws him out, he has to stop, suddenly overwhelmed. He leans forward and rests his forehead against Todd's hip.

He feels Todd's hands in his hair, gentle fingers soothing.

'You've wanted me,' he whispers.

Andrew nods, all the months of frustration, desire and guilt rushing out in a long, strangled sigh.

'I understand. It's…confusing.'

Andrew looks up into Todd's face. His long hair is hanging down like a veil, casting his features in shadow, but Andrew can see his mouth...wet, soft, lips so full. God, he wants to kiss him, to sink into that mouth. Maybe he will, if this…works out.

'You're confused, too?' Andrew says, his voice sounding too high, too hopeful.

'Yeah. It took me awhile to figure out what to do about it. I couldn't just…,' he breaks off, ruffling Andrew's curls.

'And now?' Andrew says, leaning into the touch.

'Sshh.' Todd's eyes shine down from the shadows. 'No more talking.'

His cock has grown harder, and Andrew strokes it gently, caresses the length with trembling fingertips, glorying in the tiny sounds of pleasure that drift down from Todd's lips.

He just touches him for a time, molding his hand to the contours, tracing the veins, the flare, and finally he wraps his hand around the shaft and guides it to his lips, sucks just the tip into his mouth.

Todd hisses, shivers, and the reaction shoots straight to Andrew's groin. He can feel the power pulsing, throbbing through Todd's cock and he needs him deeper, needs him inside. He takes as much as he can into his mouth, pumps the rest slowly with his hands, reaches beneath to massage Todd's scrotum, all the while basking in the moans of approval raining down on him like blessings.

Andrew is loving this — bringing Todd along slowly, building, controlling this fierce, dangerous man, reducing him to putty in his hands— and the small moans, the choked gasps crowd everything from Andrew's mind but Todd's vulnerability, Todd's pleasure...

'Oh fuck, you're so good at that, Andrew,' he whispers. 'Yeah, use your tongue now…,'

Looking up into his shadowed face, Andrew licks the underside ridge with a flat, wet tongue, circles the tip, and engulfs him again, his hands working what his mouth can't reach, and Todd groans…a full-throated, desperate sound that turns Andrew's blood into fire. In a near frenzy, he shifts to change the angle and starts sucking in earnest.

Todd gasps and grabs Andrew's head, begins rocking his hips in a gentle counter-rhythm.

'You like that, don't you, Andrew…you like how I fuck your mouth...,'

Andrew moans at the words, sucks harder, his erection so painful he can't take it anymore.

And as if Todd is omniscient, he says, 'Do you want to jerk off?'

Andrew pulls back. 'Yeah,' he gasps.

'Do it.'

Gratefully, Andrew tears open his pants, grabs himself and starts pumping. He returns to Todd hungrily — licking, sucking, dying to make him groan again and lose control completely.

'Oh yeah, you have a sweet mouth, Andrew,' Todd says breathlessly. 'Just made for sucking cock. Mine…nobody else's…you have to promise me.'

Andrew backs off again to answer. 'I promise,' he gasps. Oh, he's so close, both of them rigid and throbbing in his hands... _and let me be the only one who does this to you_ , _the only one who gets to feel your power..._

'You don't hate me, do you,' Todd says, a trace of pain in his voice.

' _No!_ ' Andrew hisses.

He has to get Todd into his mouth again, needs him to come in his mouth, down his throat, pump that power, that dark intensity into him so he can absorb it and _become_ him, just a little bit...

But Todd's hands are tangled tightly in Andrew's hair, holding him back.

'Tell me how you feel…I need to hear it…, please…' His voice is thick, so desperate, so _human_ , that Andrew can't help but let it all out.

' _I worship you_ ,' he gasps. 'God, I fucking _worship you_ and I need you to come in my mouth, I need to make you come—,'

He jerks away from Todd's grasp and lunges, swallows even more of him than before, nearly choking but not giving a shit, pumping him wildly with his fist. He looks up, sees that Todd's head is thrown back, his neck arched and vulnerable, his entire body shaking. The sight is so beautiful that Andrew feels an incredible orgasm gathering, pumps himself frantically—oh, _God_ , it's gonna be good, so deep, so deep—strokes and sucks Todd furiously so they can come together…and just as Andrew begins to shatter, just as the exquisite pleasure begins to shoot through his body, Todd drops his head forward, his hair swinging, his eyes black and cold as sin, a malevolent smile on his face...

He's laughing.

'Worship me, huh? God heard that, Andy,' he says, and gives a mighty shove that sends Andrew sprawling on his back across the floor, groaning and writhing in both horror and ecstasy, his cock twitching freely, spurting semen into the air like a geyser.

Todd continues to laugh as he moves to where Andrew lays in a heap — stunned, gasping, still shuddering with the last of his orgasm, and utterly destroyed. Todd stands over him like a magnificent satyr or a demon from a Bosch painting, his own cock stiff and straining, and Andrew closes his eyes, braces for the inevitable hot splash of Todd's semen on his face. He almost wants it — the coda, the ultimate humiliation — a kind of perverted baptism into this new world of truth.

But he doesn't even get that. 'Welcome to Hell,' he hears Todd whisper.

He opens his eyes to find Todd bending over him with a triumphant smile…the vanquishing angel who has shown Andrew his true face. He laughs again, straightens up, shoving himself roughly back into his pants and zips up. He turns, his overcoat moving around his body like a flexing of wings, and heads for the door.

'See ya in church, Rev,' Todd calls over his shoulder.

For a very long time Andrew lays where he landed — numb, drained of will, of faith, of anything resembling himself — Todd still hot in his mouth.

He slowly licks his lips…tasting power.

—END—


End file.
